I felt a desire of meeting Dewaia .
Mother sat in my room until I fell asleep , a habit since my childhood .
In the afternoon , I woke up and decided to venture out to revive the memories of youth and to find Dewaia near the shrine . My mother advised me to return early because it was the first foggy day of the year . I came out into the street where the thick grey fog was enveloping every rooftop and sidewalk in the city . When I was young , my brother and I used to play hide and seek on foggy days . Although everything seemed the same , the streets were filled with another breed of people . There were no teenagers laughing with hysteria at the tea stalls while the old people walked by with their canes , frowning at the carefree laughter of youth . And there were no children . I learned to play many games out there like Cokla Chapaki , Guli Danda and Kbadi . I stood there for a while trying to listen for the playful sound of children , but there wasn ’ t any . All that was left were my delightful memories of childhood . Nowadays , children were busy with computer games and it seemed humanity had lost its innocence of early years .
I reached a point near the Saint ’ s tomb . A place where desperate people weighed down by the threat of poverty and disease prayed for good fortune and offered their hard-earned money to the caretaker of the saint ’ s tomb . Parents brought their children , to ask the saint for high marks in their next examination . With no change in the lives of poor people , the caretakers had become very rich . During my childhood , I remembered whenever an annual festival took place at the saint ' s tomb and pilgrims came in droves . Temporary vendors opened shops . It was much more appealing to me than visiting the tomb . Moving around these shops was an experience because the place was so lively . People sat at tea stalls narrating how their wishes were granted . The colourful local sweets on wood burning stoves were my favourites .
After I stopped to have my favourite sweets , I entered the courtyard and stood at its perimeter . A man danced , lost in his dhamal , a traditional dance . The drummers hit the dhol with rhythm and farther away camel moved slowly from the mountain into our small town . The ringing bells around the camels ’ neck were adding to the rhythm of drums . I focused on the man as he danced . I could feel the ecstasy of Malang . It was Malang Alladewaia .
I called to him aloud , “ Dewaia !” He looked at me , smiled , blinked his one eye , and then was lost again in his ecstasy . There was a familiarity to his dance … familiarity one feels listening to a folk song after years .
I sat there waiting for Dewaia to finish his ecstatic dance . I had known him most of my life , and through my travels , I thought of him often . Seeing Dewaia ’ s dance took me back to those beautiful days of our village life . I remembered him wearing a black or green cloth with chains and beads , and his long dark hair was combed straight back , to the collar of his long shirt and tucked behind his ears . In the hot summer afternoons when Baba and Grandpa slept , my cousin and I often visited Dewaia in his hut outside the village . It was made of a thick layer of straw , covered with date matting . He was a free-living , free-loving and caring man . He would wake up with the cooing of pigeons . To him , the entire world seemed in tune with their tranquil notes . He would open the door of the birds ’ mud cage saying , “ Fly away and find your grains in the fields . I am not left with much .” He earned his livelihood by dancing at the village saint ’ s tomb , on weddings , and with Shias during the ten days of their mourning month . At Christmas , he would sing with Christians and celebrate Diwali with Hindus . During my stay in the village , I never saw him going out of the village but now he was there at the saint ’ s tomb in the city . I was surprised to see him in the city . I kept watching him , twisting , twirling and turning to the beat of a dhol .
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